Intrigue in the Village (Turnham Malpas 10) (28 page)

She sprang on them just as they were leaving the bathroom. In the tight confines of Maggie’s landing there wasn’t much room for escape. She beat about the air with the golf club, screaming like a banshee.

‘You interfering old besoms, I’ll show you. Here, take that. And that. You nosy-parking old bitches, get out, get out!’ The Senior sisters, nervous to begin with, shakingly mustered their strength and raced each other to be first down the stairs, but jammed together at the top, shouting for help.

‘I’ll give you help. How dare you force your way into my house? Get out. Go on, get out.’ Maggie swiped at them with the golf club until they unknotted themselves
and hurried down the stairs one after the other. But where was Linda? She was found in the bedroom, hiding behind the door, half laughing, half crying with fright.

Maggie shouted, ‘It’s all your fault. I told you I wasn’t doing another seance, but oh no, Linda Crimble wouldn’t listen. Now, get yourself down those blasted stairs before I stove your head in.’

She slapped Linda twice on the back of her head before Linda managed to get out of the bedroom, then she clattered down the stairs, catching her high heels in the carpet more than once, with Maggie behind, lunging at her and screaming abuse. Linda shot out of the back door faster than light. Maggie shouted after her, ‘And put the bolt on the gate, you nasty bitch, you.’

She sat down beside her fireplace and rocked herself furiously until her temper had cooled. Then she began to laugh. She laughed as she hadn’t since Dave died. How she giggled, peel upon peel, and when she stopped to hold her side from the pain, she started again almost immediately. It would be a while before that Linda Crimble tried anything like that again. She’d send her the bill for repairing the door frame. Nasty pink candlewick! How dare she? But the surprise on Linda’s face when she appeared waving the golf club was worth it! What a laugh. My, it was a while since she’d enjoyed herself so much.

When, finally, she’d laughed herself to a standstill, she went to the cupboard beside the fireplace and took out the squares of paper she’d used for the Ouija board, found some matches and, methodically placing the logs on the hearth, she threw the pieces of paper in the grate, lit a match and set fire to them. Just before the flames died down, she remembered the red square of cloth she’d used
to cover the lamp shade and burned that too. Then she got the tulips out of the cupboard, cut the plastic stalks in half with her old dressmaking shears and bunged them in the bin. The wine glass she’d already got rid of so now there was nothing left of the seance sessions except her memories.

She went upstairs and took a shower, using some shower gel her sister had given her for Christmas. When she was sweet-smelling all over she went into the bedroom for her nightgown, blushed at the thought of the Rector seeing her in it, and decided that too had to go. As her hand touched the bedspread to pull it back she recalled Linda’s scathing comment, so she pulled that off, screwed it into a ball and flung it down the stairs. It narrowly missed Tabitha, who was padding upstairs now the excitement was over, to climb into bed for some TLC after her shock.

The two of them settled down under the blankets and Maggie’s last thought was she’d go to Culworth on the bus on Saturday and indulge herself with a duvet at that sale in Bishopgate. From now on she was keeping her word about going to church and there’d be no more communicating with the spirits, definitely not.

Now she’d put things right she felt so much better. Like Peter had said, if she truly was sorry for what she’d done, then Him up there would give her a new beginning. She was and He would. So now she could sleep proper like. She tucked a gentle arm around Tabitha and they both fell asleep.

Kate stayed late that night at the school, putting the finishing touches to her plans for the anniversary. She was admiring the programme proof just come from the printers and thinking about any loose ends she hadn’t tied up when the telephone rang.

‘Kate?’

‘Craddock, is something the matter?’

‘Just wondered if you were coming home.’

‘Right now.’

‘Good. Drink?’

‘Gin and orange.’

‘Right.’

Kate picked up the programme proof, checked she’d locked the filing cabinet, and left the school by the main door. She paused for a moment after she’d locked it and looked up at the sky. It was a fine, clear night with the full moon shining brightly in a magical, midnight-blue sky. It was far later than she’d realized. When the celebrations were over, she’d spend far more time with Craddock. He deserved it, he’d been so thoughtful about her late nights at work, but obviously he was feeling lonely tonight. Kate drove home, parked her car and walked towards the front
door to find it opening and Craddock standing there waiting for her.

He kissed her cheek, took her hand and drew her inside. The door to the students’ bar was wide open and their shouts and laughter could be heard all over Turnham House. Venetia came hurrying across the hall. ‘Sorry about this, Mr Fitch. I’ll turf them out.’

‘That’s all right, but they are over-running their time.’

‘I realize that. Sorry.’

Kate and Craddock went upstairs, closing the flat door firmly behind them and shutting out the noise.

‘Here’s your gin. Show me the proof.’

While Kate sank into a chair and took her first sip, Craddock put on his reading glasses and read. He looked at her and smiled.

‘This is excellent. Absolutely excellent. You’ve got it just right. Everyone will want one for a souvenir. They’ll sell like hot cakes. Just the right number of photographs, and the text is absolutely bang on the nail.’

Kate blushed with pleasure. ‘Thanks. That’s praise indeed.’

‘Don’t make it sound as though I’m not ready to give praise. I always do where praise is due.’

‘You do. I’m beginning to get quite nervous about this anniversary. I am doing the right thing, aren’t I?’

‘Of course you are. You’ve got all my support and if there’s anything you need doing on the day, just say the word.’ He tapped some ash from his cigar. ‘I’m a good man in a crisis.’

‘You are. Like a rock. Best day’s work I did asking you to marry me.’

He spotted the smile on her face and grinned back,
remembering how many times he’d asked her before she’d agreed. ‘Same for me. First time in my life I’ve really been loved.’

‘Oh come on, Craddock, surely your parents loved you?’

He looked down at his glass. She waited, realizing that, without thinking, she’d asked him a very crucial question. The silence lasted for almost a minute before he answered.

‘My mother would have if she hadn’t had love beaten out of her. As for my father, he spent most of his time with his brains addled by drink. He was a drunken, brutal bully, self-obsessed, coarse, domineering, the son of another drunken, brutal bully. He hadn’t a single redeeming feature. The six of us lived in terror of him.’

‘My darling! I’d no idea.’

‘And my mother made seven. She never had a happy moment for as long as I can remember. In the end she gave up the struggle and consequently we lived in a hovel. Who could blame her? I certainly couldn’t. All I did, smart Alick, Henry Craddock Fitch, was walk out on her at sixteen and never go back. As a grown man I could have made her life so much better, at least in the material way.’ He looked up at Kate, those ice-blue eyes of his filled with tears.

He held out a hand to her and she got to her feet and went to kneel in front of him. Putting her arms around him, she laid her head on his chest and remained quiet for a while until she’d found the right words. ‘You’re loved now. Right this very minute. You always will be while I have breath in my body. Don’t ask me why. The age difference is huge; you’re rich, I’m not. I’m bloody-minded when it comes to it, independent and tough and
like my own way, and I’m having to learn about living with someone, but I wouldn’t change things, not for the world.’

Again he was silent, stroking her hair, holding her tightly, communicating without words. Eventually he said, ‘I remember my mother’s birthday, I must have been about seven at the time. The six of us had scraped some money together and managed to buy her some cheap perfume, something perfectly appalling, I’ve no doubt. We couldn’t wait for the morning to come to give it to her. We must have had the bottle out of its box a dozen times, desperate for her birthday to dawn, desperate to witness her delight. My father, who’d slept downstairs because he couldn’t get up them to go to bed properly, woke up when we sang “Happy Birthday” and when he saw what we’d bought her, he snatched the bottle from her just as she was smelling it and telling us how delighted she was. I remember,’ his voice broke and he had to pause, swallowing hard to control his emotion, ‘she had this beautiful smile on her face, it was lit up, even her eyes were glowing with her pleasure and we felt so delighted for her . . . then he staggered to the sink and poured it away. “She’s not bloody having that,” he said. “It’ll make ’er smell like a tart.” How I hated him for that. How hard we’d tried to save the money for it. How precious it was to us and to her. Had I been bigger I would have killed him. I remember it was a lovely bottle with a kind of frosted glass top. It seemed to me to be the very height of elegance, a thing of real beauty. We were so proud of it.’

‘I’m sure it was. I’m so sorry, Craddock. And still it hurts after all these years. How dreadfully painful. Why
have you kept this all hidden away? You could have told me.’

‘It is the only way I can deal with the shame. The absolute shame that I never went back to see to her, to make her life easier. Me with my millions! I’m not worth much, am I? Not in any real way.’

‘Darling!’

‘That was why I did Mrs Bliss’s house up. I saw my mother all over again, the smell of desperation, of having given up because the odds were unsurmountable. My God! It was like going back in time. The moment I saw her, I knew.’ He explained to her what he’d found out about Mr Bliss. ‘A wonderful, spirited husband, selfish perhaps when he’d fathered so many children, but brave and courageous, filled to the brim with enthusiasm, but not very practical. If only he’d attended to the money he’d have come back from the South Pole and been applauded for it. But he went without enough of the right supplies and some unexpectedly severe weather defeated him. Thought he was invincible, I expect. Money is the very devil.’

She picked up his cigar from the ashtray where he’d put it when she’d knelt down to hug him, handed it to him and watched that sexy ring of smoke float away up to the ceiling. ‘Only if you let it be your master. You may not have helped your mother but you have helped Mrs Bliss.’

‘I have. She’s taking that job, you know. She can attend to the school computers, too, if you have a problem.’

‘Thanks. That’ll be wonderful. They’ve been a tremendous asset for the school. For a village school to be capable of giving the children such a tremendous start is fantastic. When I meet other teachers and tell them what computers
we have, they almost faint. One or two I swear have turned several shades of green. “In a
village
school?” they say very scathingly, so as to let me know my humble place in the scheme of things. I don’t let on my husband gave them to us as bait to get me to marry him.’

Craddock grinned a schoolboy grin. ‘I wasn’t even
thinking
of marrying you at the time. I do know when I realized what you meant to me, though.’

‘When was that?’

‘Remember I was given those tickets to a VIP do at the Globe? You know, Shakespeare’s doodah? You were dressed in the most flattering dark blue dress, almost black but not quite, and you were talking to someone, animated and thoroughly enjoying yourself, and I caught your eye and you raised your glass to me and a gorgeous smile came over your face. That was when I realized you were the woman for me and come hell or high water I’d marry you before the year was out.’

‘I remember that. I was thinking you weren’t a bad old cove and that I quite liked you. I thought you could be fun if you’d just lighten up a bit. But I never expected you to propose. Really, in truth, we are an outrageously mismatched couple, but it works, doesn’t it? The first time you asked me, I went to bed that night absolutely floored. How could he possibly imagine I should want to marry him? I thought. I can’t, can I? It would be ridiculous. Then I decided to cold-shoulder you and refuse your invitations, just to see if I could manage without seeing you.’

He laid a gentle hand on her cheek and kissed her lips. ‘I remember that. You were cruel. I believed I’d lost you and kicked out at everyone and everything in sight. I must
have been a total pain. You know old Ted, who’s been with me since the beginning? He’s never deferential, ever, and he said, “What’s bloody getting at you? Anybody’d think you were in love.” And I thought, he’s damned right, is Ted. I am. I must be.’

‘I liked old Ted when I met him, you know that time you took me round your offices and on site at the new arts complex you were building? I thought, there’s a man who knows the world as it really is, no frills, no sentiment, just plain honest to goodness truth.’

‘Oh! Ted knows about truth all right. He never spares my feelings. He said after he’d met you that I should get married to you sooner rather than later because he could see you’d keep my feet on the ground, like he’d always tried to do.’

Kate sat back on her heels, smiling.